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Today I turned 80. Well technically 30, but I think we can add 25 years apiece to 2020 and 2021.

The tech guy turned out to be from Thessaloniki, where I grew up. My grandparents' neighbourhood. And naturally a PAOK fan. My parents' house is a 2 minute walk from the stadium. When I got my apartment in Athens I didn't realize I moved across the street from the local clubhouse. We are family in athenian exile, joined by our mutual distaste for local food. He ordered the parts and got them delivered in a couple of hours and the whole thing got fixed in around 5 hours. Fastest service ever. And all it took was agreeing that people in Athens have no appreciation for crushed red pepper...

Final fantasy sounds like an overpriced cashgrab by a company that decided to make its business model nostalgia exploitation. BG3 is an old IP with nostalgia value slapped onto a Larian game. Darktide is a Vermintide reskin. There, Hoonding should appear less cynical in comparison now

For a few months now, neither local stores or Amazon Fresh have had my diet Mt. Dew in cans. Ever. Sometimes they have 16oz plastic bottles, sometimes not. I prefer cans. Strangely, whenever up at the new house, the stores around there have it/are apparently hoarding it, so whenever I go up I check and buy some. Hubby went up there last night just without me (just paying/checking in with a handyman dude, coming right back). He texted me a picture with a thumbs-up over four 12-packs of my caffeine addiction, with the word "SCORE" I love my man. Btw, he's not an adult, either. It's probably why we get along so well.

The only zombie game you need is Project Zomboid. Well, and maybe the original Resident Evil 1 (and remake).

Remarkably, NASA has completed deployment of the Webb space telescope.

@BruceVC I was thinking of you yesterday by the way. Tech guy told me: "your graphics card was leaning left" And my first thoughts were "Of course it does, it is my card after all." and "Bruce will have a field day teasing me about this."

The tech guy who fixed my computer asked me if I was a gamer. That really got me thinking... am I still a gamer if I find most games that come out aren't worth playing?

I like the idea of america being a colony, but zombies, bleh. Too many zombie games.

Didn't seem like there was an appropriate place to put this in the Computer and Video Games board: Pretty much sums up all my playthroughs. Bear Flag Republic 4 Lyfe.

Many thanks, this would be used in next BPM version. You will be creditted of course. Wahai Poraga working as intended is a good news because it is such an unique weapon.

Three men have to share a hotel room in Chelyabinsk during a congress. Naturally, in the evening, they start drinking. One thing leads to another, and they find themselves telling political jokes. Concerns that any of the others may be KGB informants or that the room may be bugged are readily dissolved in alcohol. Everybody is having a great time. One is tired and really feels like sleeping; he decides to pull a joke on the others. He excuses himself, runs to the lobby and gives the receptionist a few bills. “Please send someone to my room with a bottle of vodka, some rye bread and salt in ten minutes.” He then returns to the room. After a few minutes, he notes to the others that stocks of refreshments are running low. “Not to worry, comrades! I have good contacts.” He leans over towards the potted plant in the corner, grabs it and loudly says, as if speaking into a microphone: “Comrades at the listening post, this is lieutenant Dyatlov! We urgently require a bottle of vodka, some rye bread and salt to our room! Make haste!” The others laugh their asses off – until a minute later, there’s a knock on the door and vodka, salt and rye bread is served. You could hear a pin drop. Our man goes to sleep, enjoying the quiet. When he wakes up in the morning, the others are gone. A note is left on the table. “Comrade! A couple of your jokes yesterday would easily get you to Siberia! (The one about Stalin’s maid, while hysterical, could get you in front of a firing squad!!!) However, we liked that room service joke so much, we’ll let you off the hook this time. Sincerely, KGB.”

i wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life another way to look at is is that she made it to 99 and looked like she were enjoying life far more than most folks we know in their mid 80s... and some in their 70s. from our pov she won, as much as anybody can win. HA! Good Fun!

The full draft script for WoT Ep1 has leaked, though a decent amount of it had already leaked over the last few months.

This thread is widely based on the data from [MECHANICS] Power level compilation thread from @thelee, but I aimed to deal with specific cases that diverge from general rules, and possibly discuss about how to correct the most annoying exceptions. Basically, there are 4 kinds of scaling : A - Scaling from weapon quality (Unarmed Scaling is close enough to belong here, even if it has a couple differences). +1 PEN, +15% additive damages and about +4 Acc per quality level. B - PL scaling from Weapon Attack Abilities such as Rogue Strikes. 5% multiplicative damages and duration for each PL above Ability Tier. C - Intrinsic non Weapon Attack Ability Scaling, purely based on Ability Tier. For Each Tier above 1, the ability gets +2 Acc and +0.5 PEN. D - PL scaling from non Weapon Attack Abilities. 5% multiplicative damages and duration, +1 Acc, +0.25 PEN for each PL above Ability Tier. Also +1 bounce and +1 projectile for each 2 PL above ability Tier. So : - An Auto attack will get A so it keeps up with enemy defences. - A Weapon Attack Ability will get A and B so it keeps up with enemy defences and get benefits from PL. - A non Weapon Attack Ability will get C and D so it keeps up with enemy defences and gets benefits from PL. The A, B, C, D values are balanced so that all abilities scale about the same. The benefits from A+B are roughly equivalent to C+D. (It doesn't mean A is equivalent to C and B to D ; D provides strictly more benefits than C). All the above would be great design (and for most part is) if not for some exceptions... So here we go. 1) Passive Abilities don't benefit from PL Apart for a couple of specific case (Carnage and Sneak Attack), Passive Abilities don't get scaling from PL as Active Abilities, even for similar effect. They do get scaling from their Ability Tier. So they get scaling C, but not D, making them subpar especially for Accuracy and PEN. For example, rooting pain gets +1.5 PEN and +6 Acc for being a Tier IV ability... but nothing more. => Note that Balance Polishing Mode address this, giving +1 Acc, +0.25 PEN and +5% multiplicative damages per PL to all class passives. I didn't add +5% multiplicative duration because Passive abilities can be applied repeatedly, so I considered they didn't need it. 2) Non-Attack Weapon Abilities get double Scaling All weapon based abilities are not "attack" as Rogue Strikes are. But all of them benefit from Weapon Scaling. The problem is that their Acc and PEN scales as if they didn't... Active Weapon based abilities which are not "attacks" benefit from Weapon scaling (A), intrinsic ability tier scaling (C) and PL scaling (D). Basically, they scale a lot. According to my testing, following abilities are concerned : - Heart of Fury - Whirling Strikes (BPM removed Accuracy and PEN component by accident) - Whispers of the Winds (gasp) - Swift Flurry - CP version of Forbidden Fist - Cleaving Stance Following abilities are NOT concerned : - Clear Out and Upgrades (they are Weapon attack + an AoE attack, that's why the main target is hit twice...) - Flagellant Path and Upgrades (they are implemented in their own specific way) - Furious Call (same as Flagellant Path) - Heartseeker (also implemented in its own specific way) To give numbers Heart of Fury with a legendary weapon and PL 10 gets : - +4 PEN, +60% damages, +15 Acc from Legendary - +3.5 PEN, +16 Acc for being a Tier 8 ability - +0.5 PEN, +2 Acc, +10% multiplicative damages from PL scaling So yeah, that's +8 PEN !!! Passive Weapon based abilities which are not "attacks" benefit from Weapon scaling (A) and intrinsic ability tier scaling (C). They don't get (D) from PL because Passive Abilities don't get benefit from PL... According to my testing, following abilities are concerned : - Riposte - Barbaric Retaliation - Heartbeat Drumming - Vengeful Defeat This leads to undocumented and above average PEN and Acc. 3) About Unique items (general case, refer below for weapons) All the previous also applies to Unique Items abilities, with following specifities : - Most abilities from items counts as Tier 1 abilties, so they don't get any benefit from C - Items use "untyped Power Level", a Power Level that doesn't depend on Class / Multi-Class. All lvl 20 characters have 9 untyped power level. Single Class may have a little edge, but only due to Prestige. Only untyped PL bonus can rise this number (Potion of Elevation, Nature Godlike, etc...) Active abilties from items do get scaling D for PL (sometimes B for Weapon attacks). Basically, they don't scale too bad. Passive abilties from non weapon items get absolutely no scaling. Their PEN is set in stone, their damages are meh and their Acc is about 10 points lower than active abilities at max level. For example, the PEN of Boltcatchers electricity attacks is always 7. I think this should be addressed, as for class passive abilities. 4) About Unique Weapons The funny thing is that unique weapons also get scaled based on weapon quality (scaling A). Passive abilties (such as Frostseeker's Garland Rake) get only scaling A which is decent. Active abilties which are weapon attacks (such as Mowdyr's Bottom Up) get scaling A and B which is... the same as other Weapon Attack abilties. Active abilties which are not weapon attacks (such as Frostseeker's Garland Breath) get both scaling A and D (a bit like abilties from point 2) ). Which is a lot. That's why Thunderous Report deals so many damages with so high Acc and PEN. This is possibly a bit strong, but since Passive bonuses are often more interesting than Per Rest / Per Encounter abilties for weapons, I think it is mostly fine. Don't hesitate to correct me if you spot any inconsistency !

I don't follow tennis, so at the end of the day I'm not that invested. As Malc said, I don't shed many tears for millionaires. I doubt the number will change much. From the start we never had issues with vaccine supply, so whoever wanted to get it got it. The number may change for scenarios where people need to travel and want to avoid the hassle, but I imagine that would be on the level of a statistical error.

dr. wachter is chair o' the UCSF department o' medicine. HA! Good Fun!

He and his wife are a bunch of weirdos, he is into some spiritual stuff. But even if they weren't, half the people here are not vaccinated. As to why he personally doesn't want to I can't say, I don't know him. He probably had the virus and was asymptomatic, so he doesn't get anything from it. As I said a little under 50% are vaccinated, as to following general advice, from what I saw more do then don't.

Finished Yakuza: Like a Dragon. I think it is my 2nd favourite in the series so far, even though I rather disliked the combat. Combat’s only saving grace is presentation and trademark Yakuza wackiness, though once I got to the bit where I had to grind I lost any patience I had for it. I also found the fan service near the end of the game to be much too heavy handed. I like Ichi as protagonist. He fits both melodramatic and silly parts of Yakuza. Having a party of characters is a nice change.

I'll play the full game

Technically that was just for playing at the Open, not getting into the country. Getting into the country is a Federal matter in Aus, and they're the ones making and enforcing the rules. Still, pretty stupid of the Open organisers not to make it absolutely explicit that that was the case, and there do seem to have been some... flexibility in terms of who the rules were enforced for at the Federal level. (I don't think there's any doubt that the whole thing was engineered to make Australian PM Scotty F. Marketing look decisive in the run up to an election where the last couple of weeks even had Murdoch press turning on him for his abject failures in dealing with covid. It's just way too convenient a set up)

That means, that you are indeed still a gamer, because you still know, how good game looks and plays

I had to do it.

da was rushed twice before probably will be rushed again developer can only make decent game in dlc

Dragon Age has yet another creative lead. I doubt it will be complete before 2024.

Just finished the Platinum Run of Super Neptunia RPG on my PS4, which became my fastest Platinum Trophy so far (4 days and 17 hours). It really helped, that we had state holidays and the weather was awful and my wife was at work .

You cant be serious? I am not use to you being so morbid and cynical. ELEX 2 is going to be epic and its highly anticipated by all lovers of the PB style of RPG But you forgetting BG3, Dying Light 2, Elden Ring, Final Fantasy Origin, Company of Heroes 3 and Warhammer 40,000: Darktide to name a few plus DA4 And I am sure their will be loads of JRPG that are coming?

I am glad you raised this possible confusion of my view, its a view I have ruminated on and followed different discussions around " what is the correct way to describe the violence on 6 January " ? I enjoy all and any debates with anyone who wants to engage with me but sometimes how you frame an argument or disagree with someone can influence if the debate is meaningful and constructive ...and that for me is why we debate, its not about being right or assuming everyone will agree. Its about sharing information and informing people about something they may not know and its sometimes our opinions You are one of those Obsidian members who I have always appreciated how you engage in most debates and then make your point. You not prone to emotion generally and how most of us will frame a valid point in an ideological way. You make your post with facts, data and real examples where applicable and you have changed my opinion on several topics which is appreciated So when you ask "how I can say this " I know you will read what I have to say and if you disagree you may post a link or explain why you disagree. Also another consideration is about the question "can you call January 6 an insurrection " its not unequivocal or defined and their interesting opinions that say it is and some who say it isnt Unfortunately this debate in the US has become one of those debates that for many people it is no longer about the issue or reality of the event but its 100 % politicized by both the left and right....not all debates are like this but this is one of them. Its demonstrated if you watch the more Trump\Conservative view on FOX or the left\liberal CNN view and this is about the journalists and not the overall stance of everyone FOX will always raise the " some of the protestors were just patriot Americans and committed no violence "or say " why is the Biden\Democrats government and FBI only focusing on arresting people involved in this protest but they fine with violence and attacks on police in BLM and ANTIFA protests " And CNN commentators will generally say " of course it was an insurrection, how can anyone say it wasn't this? We warned you guys this was going to happen and Trump is responsible ...this was the darkest day in US history " And both these views have some truth to them but these comments also make certain generalizations and are framed to support certain narratives around politics so what is the truth ? For me it had certain components of your typical insurrection but surely an insurrection has to have an objective that can be achieved? If you consider the deeply spurious views of almost all the protesters is that they like Trump didnt accept that Biden had won the election and their was no real vote rigging or cheating...they chose to believe fake news and misinformation about something as old and successful as the legitimacy of the US elections The whole 6 January event at the Capitol is normally ceremonial as far as I know, so in other words lets say the worse outcomes of what some of the mob was chanting was realized and they had killed Pence, Nancy Pelosi and other prominent politicians would that negate that Biden was president? It would delay the process but Biden would still be president because he won the election with the votes of more Americans than Trump got I just think you shouldn't call this an insurrection based on what is was suppose to achieve? But here is a more important question, why does it matter so much what we call it? I refer to it as Capitol violence or the Capitol attacks and Im more concerned with who was directly responsible for planning it so they can also be prosecuted People who attend any protest or march and commit any crime should be arrested and charged and face jail time if appropriate. This is always my view on protests generally

I'm sorry if it came across as I was trying to refute your post, I was not. I was just trying to explain the expectations of how Obsidian would have set expectations to both themselves and to Versus Evil, their publisher from whom they would have been fronted millions of dollars to complete the game. The 700k (plus or minus) baseline would have likely been disappointing, but would have been a break even for the money they borrowed, anything more would have been profit for both sides. I would seriously doubt that Obsidian expected an uptick in sales tantamount to D:OS 2; that game had loads of features built in to increase interest and longevity (co-op, pvp, modability). The 2d rpg concept was always going to be a niche, nostalgia based concept based on how they started it off. That is why Deadfire ran into trouble. No disagreement on any of your other points either, it's just that in a forum setting, as fans, we forget that this is a business. As to your other point, I'm wondering how being owned by Microsoft will affect scope of projects in the Eora sphere. I think they did a great job with world building and certainly Avowed attests to that, so more projects are likely. I'm just wondering how different a new party based game might be different from the 2d games we have now. I don't think Microsoft will care much about scope or scale if Avowed proves successful. Although smaller games like modules could be very cool.

Sure, . Figures. Mhm. Don't I know what you mean, except not exactly with entertainment that I like. It's everything else that's a bother at times. Deadlines make things so much easier to achieve. Leave me something to do and tell me I can do it whenever I feel like, that's probably going to be never. Are you saying that you don't like the beautiful giraffe look? The biggest problem is, I think, going to be able to get through the Black Moon arc. That was the worst in Crystal. At least until... uhm. No, that's wrong. There is no worst in Crystal, every season including the movies are all equally the worst, as impossible as that is. Might just get the live action thing out of the way first. It's also taking up the most space on my hard disk, and my disk space is slowly running out. I really need an upgrade here. Meh. I haven't noticed anything yet, but we'll see. So far there was a whole bunch of guy underwear to be seen though. I've seen worse intros though. The chipmunk song from the second season of K-On! probably takes the cake. Finished watching Tamako Market, episode four. Tamako's sister Anko hides in a closet when a certain boy from her class hears her yell to sell special holiday mochi they made. Unlike with Shiori (who appears in this episode but acts normally) Anko is nine, so that's somewhat excusable. There's a running gag in the entire episode that Tamako is about as dense about her and other's feelings as Sakura in CCS is. I really wish that I would like these characters more than I do. Then I'd actually enjoy watching this, instead of just noting that it's not bad but just not clicking with me. Dera keeps being funny, but I doubt that'll work for 8 more episodes and a movie.

Sure, . Left to my own devices, I do tend to do that at the beginning of stuff...and then go and try other stuff for some reason, even if I love it. I need something or someone pushing me forward to consistently stick with something in particular. One oddity for me about Sailor Moon vs. Sailor V is that the way characters look in the Sailor Moon manga actually kind of creep me out at times. I wasn't ever going to read the Sailor Moon manga most likely anyways, but I thought it would also be a problem with Sailor V and it isn't. Sailor V is more messy and a little more simple, but for some reason, it just looks better to me. Good luck with both of those, . If I recall correctly, there is maybe one or two slightly questionable instances throughout the show - feel free to keep a counter. Can't really even "compete" with Sailor Moon in that area (which isn't bad by way of framing...but nevertheless has many instances that are between slightly and moderately questionable). Yeah, I like the outro much better - this one has no energy or personality.

The bright side is people are seeing how the refugees are held. Sort of funny to see how people care so much about athletes, I'd never waste my time protesting for some millionaire

I have some thoughts on this. 1. The crisis will be mitigated by the retirement packages most teachers have to look forward to. It is easy to leave education in the first 5 years, but after that you are walking away from a fairly decent package, depending on the state. It will be important that districts continue to make that attractive. There have been 2 times in my 20 year career where I seriously thought about pivoting, and it was the long term picture that kept me going through the career itch. 2. The crisis is necessary. My salary schedule has barely changed in the last 10 years. I have moved up the ladder, but we are not even keeping up with COLA costs on a yearly basis. Some districts do better than others. But the reality is teachers need to make more money. It is the only surefire way to attract more people to the profession. It needs to be a decent living. My wife and I cannot afford houses on teacher's salaries, despite nearing the top of the salary schedule. When we started our career, it was possible. Teacher salaries were never fantastic to begin with, but they have stagnated while everything else has increased. I could easily go on about this. I also think we should go to a 4-day teaching schedule with the 5th day acting as a flex day. They want us having conferences, teaching social emotional content, and serving on committees, but then they also want us teaching all the educational standards to 180 students 5 days a week. It is exhausting. Every teacher I know enjoys being in the class with the students and teaching. It is the extra stuff that burns people out.

i'll be editing this one for 2023 adding Cthulhu using Godzilla as a sock puppet

My jobs in this community: 1) Post about weird, obscure, niche games that few, if any, other forum members will care about 2) Also specifically dislike Larian and Bioware writing 3) Hate on Bethesda developed games 4) Post as many screenies as possible to keep the Pictures of Your Games threads from getting overwhelmed by Mordheim Troubleshooter screenies 5) Attempt to convert as many lost souls to the Church of the Eurojank RPG as possible so that they may also share in the glory. Have you heard the great news?

My list of finished games is short. I'll do a Good, Bad, Ugly list (not all games released 2021) : The Bad 2021: Evil Genius 2 was the worst offender. My greatest disappointment in any game. Especially as the marketing people flat out lied and described the game as being the opposite of what they said. I had a positive opinion of Rebellion as they had been decent in the past, but EG2 burned any and all goodwill I had towards them and put them on my no-purchase list. Vampire: The Masquerade - Night Road I gave up on after 13 minutes. I seriously disliked the writing. A game that is pure text should convince with the text. Conglomerate 451 tries too hard to be 1337. The devs try to do some damage control on the forum by acknowledging that their design direction has alienated a LOT of customers (read: no Save & Quit during missions because a true rogue like has consequences...) Necromunda: Underhive Wars I already disliked last year, but I was going to be the bigger teddy bear and give it another another chance and see how all the hard work the devs put into the game improved things. Bolters now drop as loot, which had previously been left out of the loot table. Yay... a year worth of patches and it is the only significant change to be honest. Rock and Rogue a Boo Bunny Plague Adventure is bad even for a game which you walk into fully expecting a yanky one man project with problematic gameplay. The original Boo Bunny Plague was hilarious and made up for any hiccups while playing. The Meh 2021: Rogue Lords is a rogue like where you play the devil and use your essence (HP) to affect things in the game. Sometimes the gimmick works well, such as when you walk into a boss fight but have a terror effect that let's you use the devil ability for free once, and so you reduce the health of the boss to 1 for free - it cheapens the fight, but you are the devil so it is very thematic and a highlight of the game experience. Often it is just a thing you do. The biggest problem is the insane damage that you just can't block. All rogue likes have inherent balance issues and sometimes your team will get an encounter they just can't beat. But usually all encounters would be beatable with the right team. In Rogue Lords some encounters just aren't winable ever with any team. Meh. Encased is throwing too many survival mechanics at the player, making the game too tedious for me to play. I understand other people will enjoy it and overlook some faults, but while the atmosphere is great, I can't find the energy to endure the gameplay. Probably because just like in Encased, I'd have to sleep for a year to regenerate the energy to play the game. Vampire: The Masquerade - Shadows of New York tried hard to be better than Coteries. And it falls short. While in theory we get two endings now, the writer should have spend less time congratulating themselves on how awesome they are and more time making the writing matter. Cat Quest is super cute. It also basically is one internet cat meme done over and over and over and over and over again. I don't regret the two hours I played, but I do have to admit that I repeated the same 5 minutes 60 times in those two hours. And they made a second game... Wildermyth starts interesting and has a good concept. It gets very repetitive very quick though and the random events are too repetitive, not written well enough, and in the end just add skip skip skip tedium. I ended up caring less and less about the characters in my party. Humankind is your standard Amplitude 4X game. LOADS of interesting ideas. But I find the game could do without the gameplay and just let me create my civilization through a questionnaire. The Good 2021 Age of Wonders: Planetfall remains one of my better experiences this year. The empire mode in the last DLC made the game enjoyable in a way the badly written campaigns couldn't. Empire mode is a reason to play the game. The content before the Star Kings DLC was a reason not to. Trials of Fire is a rogue like that does not have your party on the left of the screen facing the enemies on the right. Instead you are markers on hexagonal map tiles; deployed on the left of the screen while your opponents are deployed on the right... The characters have interesting abilities and the loot is rpg fun. Star Renegades is fantastic in the standard good guys on the left, bad guys on the right rogue like genre. Amazing pixel art. It has a premise that works well to make you repeat the loop. It has terrible writing by people who think they are funny. It has an involved way to unlock more characters. The WTF? 2021 How the heck did I end up playing 200+ hours of Skyrim? The reason I stopped was not being able to decide who to marry so the girls could have a second parent. The Highlight 2021 Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children completed its current content recently and except for the one story and one optional crabmit maps (which, if modded out of the game would be great) continues with the same of everything that made the game great so far.

From Gorth's young years... she was hot and she had *that* voice